Q: My ex-wife asked me to watch our daughter on one of her days. We have a custody agreement in place. I gladly watched my daughter. We had bad weather, so I took my daughter home, and asked my ex to meet us there. She said ok. About 20 min later she told me to meet her at a local establishment to drop my daughter off. I told her I wasn’t going out in that weather. She came by the house ranting and raving. She took my daughter out, and called me a “p_ _ _ y”. I went out after her and told my daughter to go back in the house. I sat down, and grabbed my remote control, when she barged into my house again. She again grabbed my daughter and left the house. I walked out after her, and took my daughter by the hand while I was holding the remote control. My ex grabbed my wrist and scratched me, and then pushed me. My daughter and I came into the house. The ex said she was calling the police, so I said ok. About 20 minutes later they pulled me out of my house, pepper-sprayed me, put me in cuffs saying that my wife accused me of pointing a gun at her. I was charged with interference of child custody, terroristic threats and simple assault. The supposed gun was a remote control.

A: Most assault cases are one person’s word versus the other person’s word. Welcome to the wrongfully accused club. To have any potential civil suit, you will need to beat the criminal case. My question is, did you own a gun at the time or have one in the house at the time? My experience has been that police would have either made you tell them where the gun was or ransacked your house looking for it. Assuming they did not find a gun, your case is much stronger. You can sue, but you need quantifiable damages such as calculated lost income or provable damage to your reputation. Also, your ex will need to be worth suing to gain interest from a plaintiff’s attorney. My thought is that it is not a great civil suit but please contact a personal injury attorney for another opinion.